When a Football Career Ends in a Diagnosis — or a Funeral — Your Family Has Legal Rights the NCAA Would Rather You Not Know About

If the man you loved played college football and died from CTE, dementia, ALS, or took his own life after years of neurological decline, the NCAA may bear legal responsibility for what happened to him — and to your family. These cases can be filed. They have been filed. And they have been won.

Who Can File a Wrongful Death or Survivor Claim Against the NCAA

You do not have to be the player himself to bring a case. Families — surviving spouses, adult children, parents, and the estates of deceased former players — have standing to pursue claims against the NCAA for brain injuries that went unaddressed during a player's college career.

 

Claims we handle for families include:

 

  • Wrongful death lawsuits filed on behalf of the estate of a former college football player who died from CTE, dementia, ALS, Parkinson's, or Alzheimer's disease
  • Survivor claims filed by a spouse or family member for the loss of consortium, companionship, and the profound disruption to family life caused by a loved one's neurological decline
  • Cases involving suicide or self-harm where CTE or related brain disease is believed to have contributed to the player's death
  • Posthumous CTE diagnosis cases where the player's brain was examined after death and CTE was confirmed by neuropathology
  • Cases where a player died without a formal diagnosis but exhibited documented behavioral, cognitive, and neurological symptoms consistent with CTE

Why Football Suicides and CTE Deaths Are Legally Different From What You May Have Been Told

Many families are told — by insurance companies, by other lawyers, or by the NCAA's own public statements — that there is nothing to be done. That too much time has passed. That without a confirmed diagnosis during the player's lifetime, there is no case. These statements are wrong, and in some instances, they are strategically misleading.

 

CTE cannot be diagnosed while a person is alive. It is a neuropathological finding — meaning it can only be confirmed by examining brain tissue after death. The law accounts for this. The discovery rule, which our firm helped establish as controlling precedent in the Ohio Supreme Court's 2018 decision in Schmitz v. NCAA, holds that the statute of limitations for a latent brain disease claim does not begin to run simply because a player knew he was hit in the head during his playing days. The clock starts when the injury — and its connection to football — is or reasonably should have been discovered.

 

For families of players who died before anyone connected their symptoms to CTE, that discovery moment may be recent. Your window to file may still be open.

What a Posthumous CTE Diagnosis Means for a Lawsuit

When a former college football player's brain is examined after death and CTE is confirmed, that neuropathological finding becomes the foundation of a legal claim. It establishes the injury. What the lawsuit then demonstrates is that the NCAA knew — for decades — that repeated head impacts caused the kind of progressive neurological disease that ended your loved one's life, and that the NCAA failed to warn players, failed to implement protective protocols, and actively suppressed research that would have changed what players and families knew.

 

We have built an extensive archive of video deposition testimony from NCAA executives acknowledging a duty to protect players — testimony gathered across years of litigation in multiple state courts. That record does not disappear when a player dies. It becomes the backbone of a wrongful death case.

 

If your family is considering brain donation or has already pursued it through the Boston University CTE Center or a similar program, we can help you understand how that process intersects with litigation and what documentation will matter most.

The Geathers Verdict and What It Means for Families

On October 23, 2025, a jury in Orangeburg County, South Carolina returned an $18 million verdict against the NCAA in Geathers v. NCAA — the first jury verdict in American history against the NCAA for latent CTE and brain disease in a former college football player. The jury deliberated for approximately one hour and fifty minutes. They awarded $10 million to Robert Geathers and $8 million to his wife, Debra, for loss of consortium.

 

Debra Geathers' $8 million award matters to every family reading this page. It is direct proof that a jury — twelve ordinary people — looked at what the NCAA knew, looked at what it cost a family, and held the organization accountable. Loss of consortium claims, survivor claims, and wrongful death claims are not secondary to a player's individual case. They are their own claims, with their own measure of damages, and juries take them seriously.

How We Evaluate Family and Wrongful Death Claims

We accept roughly one in ten cases that come to us. That selectivity is not indifference — it is the discipline that makes us effective. When we take a case, we commit the resources, the expert relationships, and the litigation infrastructure to see it through to verdict if necessary. For families, that means we will tell you honestly what we see in your loved one's history, what the legal obstacles are, and whether we believe a case can be built.

 

What we look for in evaluating a family or wrongful death claim:

 

  • Documentation of the player's college football career — rosters, game footage, medical records, training records
  • Medical records showing neurological symptoms, psychiatric treatment, behavioral changes, or a formal diagnosis of dementia, ALS, Parkinson's, or Alzheimer's
  • Neuropathological findings if the player's brain was examined after death
  • A clear timeline connecting the player's playing years to the onset of symptoms
  • Surviving family members who can speak to the changes they witnessed over time

 

You do not need to have every piece of documentation assembled before you call us. We help families gather what exists and assess what can be obtained.

Working With Families Across the Country

Our practice is national. We have active cases in South Carolina, Ohio, Maryland, New York, Indiana, Illinois, California, Kentucky, and Minnesota, among other states. We work with respected local trial counsel in many of these jurisdictions — including co-counsel relationships with Bakari Sellers of the Strom Law Firm in South Carolina — so that families have both the specialized brain injury litigation experience our firm brings and the local courtroom presence that matters at trial.

 

If you are a family in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or anywhere else in the country, geography is not a barrier to working with us. Our practice is cloud-based and virtually paperless, which means we move quickly and communicate clearly regardless of where you are.

Frequently Asked Questions for Families

  • Can I sue the NCAA if my husband played college football and later died by suicide?

    Yes, in many circumstances. Research has established a documented link between CTE and impulsive behavior, depression, and suicide. If your husband played college football, exhibited neurological or behavioral symptoms in the years before his death, and his brain was examined or his history is consistent with CTE, a wrongful death or survivor claim against the NCAA may be viable. The statute of limitations question is fact-specific and depends on when the connection between his condition and his football career was or should have been discovered — which is something we assess in every intake.

  • My father was never formally diagnosed with CTE. Can we still file a claim?

    A formal CTE diagnosis is not required to file a lawsuit. CTE can only be confirmed after death through neuropathological examination, so the absence of a clinical diagnosis during a player's lifetime is expected, not disqualifying. Claims can be built around documented symptoms, medical records, family testimony, and expert opinion. If your father's brain was not examined after his death, that does not automatically foreclose a claim — it changes how the case is constructed.

  • How long do we have to file after a former player dies?

    The statute of limitations for wrongful death and survivor claims varies by state and depends heavily on when the family knew or should have known that the player's death or decline was connected to his football career. The discovery rule — which our firm helped establish as controlling law in the Ohio Supreme Court's Schmitz v. NCAA decision — means the clock does not necessarily start at the time of death or even at the time of diagnosis. We urge families not to assume their time has passed without speaking with us first.

  • What damages can a surviving spouse or family recover?

    Damages in wrongful death and survivor claims can include loss of consortium and companionship, loss of financial support, medical and care expenses incurred during the player's decline, funeral and burial costs, and in appropriate cases, punitive damages aimed at the NCAA's institutional conduct. The $8 million loss of consortium award to Debra Geathers in the Geathers v. NCAA verdict illustrates what juries are willing to award when they understand the full human cost of the NCAA's failures.

  • Do we need to have the player's brain examined for CTE before contacting you?

    No. If the player has already passed away and brain donation was not pursued, that decision does not bar a claim. We work with families from wherever they are in this process. If brain examination is still an option and the family is open to it, we can discuss how that intersects with litigation. If it is not, we evaluate what other evidence exists. Contact us before drawing any conclusions about what your family's options are.